"The Mental Game Of Poker" - Chapter 5: Tilt

As I mentioned in my previous post, this key chapter totals about 80 pages and occupies about one third of the book. The first thing that is established in this chapter is that tilt is an anger issue and should be seen as a symptom NOT the cause of problems. The reader is also asked to contemplate on their own game and to complete a "Tilt Profile" which I'll mention later.

Here, Tendler covers 7 different types of tilt and dissects and explores all the features that make up each one. Sometimes they do sound similar and there does seem to be a bit of overlap but nevertheless, the information covering each type will resonate more for some than others. For example, what he wrote on "Mistake Tilt" and "Hate Losing Tilt" made a lot more sense to me and had me identifying much more with the material than what he wrote on "Revenge Tilt" or "Desperation Tilt" which are types of tilt I don't suffer from as much. This obviously alerts me to the area I need to refer to when I make my own self-examination/diagnosis.

The information that he supplies in this chapter is essentially like the spreading out of all the different pieces of the logic puzzle that could be used to help plug the gaps in the mental game. It's then up to the reader to identify his own problems and then possibly use some of these pieces to help him complete or work out the puzzle himself. My interpretation is that, therefore, as you go through the exercises needed in preparing the "Recognition" stage of the Injecting Logic strategy (in Chapter 4) as well as the "Mental Hand History" as part of the Resolution strategy (in Chapter 4) - the pieces of information in Chapter 5 serve as keys to help you identify and/or unlock those problems in those exercises. To make matters clearer, it is my belief that these pieces can also be used to build up the "Tilt Profile" which appears at the start of the chapter. Yes, this, once again, asks for more effort from the reader but I'm willing to go with the, "You get out what you put in" adage.

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Personally speaking, I have still not pro-actively gone out to complete any of the tasks that Tendler asks the reader to complete yet as I still wish to get an overview of the book by reading it from cover to cover first. For me, Chapter 5: Tilt seems to serve best as a kind of reference manual to be referred to when diving into the aforementioned exercises.

One of the shortcomings of the book is this uncertainty of knowing if my approach, outlined above, is the correct way of going about getting the most out of the book or whether it's anywhere near what the author actually intended his readers to do. I think if Tendler had actually outlined a more structured program of study for his readers, as it were, then I would have an even greater degree of confidence in the book. Don't get me wrong, I still think it surpasses anything Hilger or Angelo put out.

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Review of Chapter 6: Fear to follow.